Being Cool with a Mule

Note from Karen: I'm hoping that others can remember more about Grandpa's Ear.   


Being Cool With a Mule

A farm accident that occurred in June 1931 could have been far worse than it was.  Now it is a part of our history.  Grandpa Gene was 16 years old and had just completed 10th Grade at St. Joseph's School.  The family lived in Auburn and the boys went to the farm every day to work.  Although the Elys and most other farmers had tractors, they still used horses and mules for some tasks. I faintly remember seeing some plows for horses in the back shed at the farm with those far-from-comfy metal seats.  However,  I'm really not sure what type of equipment they actually had in 1931.  Can anyone fill in any more details on this???

For a 5th Grade school assignment on Dec 11, 1953,  I interviewed my dad about his ear.  This yellowed paper was tucked into my baby book (which hadn't been updated since I was 8 months old).  I'm guessing this was a rough draft because there are some spelling errors that Mother would certainly have made me correct and also there isn't a grade on it.  I do remember copying and recopying assignments often!  Nevertheless, most of the facts are included.  I note that he told me the story in a funny, rather than scary, way!  How typical!

       A Big Bite

When my Dad was working in a field, he had a big suprize.  He was working some mules to pull a hay mower.  He was hitching the mules to the mower and was pulling the yoke up and one mule bit off his right ear.  He decided to go down to the  house and get a doctor.  The lady that was there thought she would drive him to town.  She wore out a battery in the car so Dad got out and cranked the car to get it started.  The lady had forgotten to turn the key.  They went into town and Dad was operated on.  They graffed some skin off his shoulder so they they could cover the ear.  When he came out of the operating room, he felt so bad because he didn't get the hay mowed.  I have a Dad with 1 1/2 ears.

Nemaha County Herald June 8, 1931

When Grandpa was coaching High School in Michigan City, IN one day his football players asked him about the ear.  He had a good story ready, perhaps one he and ND friends had jointly authored on one of those long train rides!  The story was that during the ND-Army game in New York, 1937, the Army mule got loose and bit off his ear!  Great story!  So the mule and the ear part were correct, but the rest of the scenario was only slightly altered.  The story eventually made it to the HS newspaper and the coach had to offer a "small correction."

Throughout the years, Grandma tried to make sure Grandpa was always photographed from his left side and the ear doesn't appear in many photos.

Gene Ely, 1952, in Auburn

But here's one, actually the best photo I've run across, and the incredible shirt is just a bonus from the 1950s.  As you can see, the "bite" was just a diagonal off the top back of his ear.  It healed completely and would hardly be called a disfigured ear.  He joked that he'd never be able to wear glasses, but when the time came, that wasn't a problem either.

Ely Family October 1953.  Joe (1 week old)

When Joe was born in Nebraska City in 1953, the attending doctor (probably Dr. Fenstermacher , who had lived in Auburn for several years) came in with a report to the mother.  He said  "I'm glad to tell you the baby has two normal ears."  Mom laughed and said "What?"  He replied, "Your son has not inherited Gene's ear."  She quickly told him that the ear was from a mule accident.  He had known us for quite a few years and had always assumed the ear was a birth defect.

Gene Ely in the Tack Room, 1985.

The only other "ear discussion" I can remember came from our long-time family physician and friend, Dr. Paul Scott, who had assumed that it was a frost-bitten ear, very common in those days, as "real men" didn't cover their ears in winter.   Dr. Scott thought it was just a consequence of the Ely toughness!

More Gene Ely cool

I recall several incidents of Grandpa's "cool," a couple of which I will share here.

The first one was the time that Grandpa had to dump an entire truckful of corn into the big silo. Brian and I were about 9 years old, and perhaps sensing an opportunity for a couple of city kids that may never come again, he allowed us to get into the back of the truck and immerse ourselves in the entire load of kernels.

The truck was HUGE, or so it seemed to us, as we could bury ourselves up to our necks in the stuff. We got corn in our shoes, socks, shirts, and were covered in dirt, but we'd never had so much fun before. I think it was the first time I realized that a grandparent could be "cool."

Incident number 2:

In the summer of 1979 I was 15 years old, and had gotten my driver's permit just a few months before (in January). We made our annual trip to Auburn in August, which was always the highlight of the year for us three Dean kids; an added benefit for me that year was being able to drive around town and at the farm. Not by myself, of course, but with Grandma or Grandpa riding shotgun, ready to take over and save us all if needed.

Grandma was always patient with me, but visibly skittish, as one would expect with a brand new driver at the wheel. Grandpa, however, was his usual calm self, only offering occasional helpful suggestions like "use your directional here," or "turn on your brights at the turn." His calm demeanor made me more at ease myself, and conveyed a wonderful sense of trust in my still-developing skills as a young driver.

We drove his pickup truck a lot around the farm, occasionally going over ditches and through ravines, where he showed me how to use the 4-wheel drive and how to use the manual shift when I needed to. We went up and down the roads, running interference for farm equipment, and doing the myriad other things that I could never experience on the roads back in southern California. I remember his advice to stay as far to the right of the road as I could when we neared the top of a crest, and then to return to the middle of the road when we reached downhill or flat ground. It was invaluable instruction.

To the coolness part... We were driving around near the goat 80, me at the wheel, and him checking some figures on a sheet of paper. I guess he was doing some kind of cattle count, I don't know, but whatever it was, he was doing his job, and I was doing mine. At one odd turn, I managed to drive us into a closed-off section just past a large tree, where I stopped the truck in front of a fence. I could go no further forward, and the tree was partly blocking my way out from behind. I could not turn around, as there was no room. I had "wedged" us into this spot, and to make matters worse, there was mud underneath the tires, making it rather slippery.

I put the truck in park. A little embarrassed, I said, "I think we're stuck, Grandpa. How do I get out of here?"

He looked up from his sheet of paper, rolled his window down, stuck his head out, and briefly surveyed the situation.

"Yep," he said, "you've got a problem," and continued on with his paper full of cow figures.

That was it. No instructions on how to get out, no advice, no suggestions, nothing. And, just as importantly, no anger, no admonishments, and no judgment, either. Just me in the driver's seat, and him with his paper of numbers. He'd already told me everything I needed to know over the previous three days that I'd been driving, and he was content to let me work this one out for myself.

Which I did. With liberal use of the 4-wheel drive, and several (hundred) shifts from reverse to drive to reverse again, I managed to extricate us from the muddy dead end and get us back onto the blessed gravel road.

He never said a word about it, and didn't need to. But as a brand new driver, that was probably the most pride I'd ever felt in my own abilities, like a 4-year-old who has just learned to tie his own shoes. I did it All By Myself, and I had Grandpa to thank for it.

That, to me, was the very essence of cool.

The Original Cool

Happy Birthday to Gene Ely, the Coolest!

January 8, 2011 would have been the 96th Birthday of our dear Daddy/Dad//Grandpa/Great-Grandpa, Gene Ely, who was the original Mr. Cool, long before the term was invented.  He had swagger with deep love for his family.  I'll give you a couple of examples from my more recent digs into the family boxes.  Also you might look at his 94th Birthday, and You with Your Grandpa.   We all can celebrate January 8th in our own special way, feeling his love that endures.

Since most of you call him Grandpa, that's the term I'll use mostly.  

In January 1931 when Grandpa would have been in 10th Grade and had just turned 16, his coolness was documented in the Nemaha County Herald.    He was still at St. Joseph's School because he went to Auburn High School for his last two years.  

40 Years Ago  (meaning Jan 1931)

Gene Ely, Lanning Andrews, Cyril Thorburg, James Wheeler and Miss Lotta Oliver started for Beatrice Tuesday night to see the basketball game.  They went in the Ely Chrysler sedan with Gene Ely driving.  When at the Rohrs railroad crossing, the brakes failed to work and the car plunged through a fence and turned over twice.  But Gene, with his usual good judgment, picked a soft place to land, which in this case was a big pile of pumpkins made nice and soft by alternate thawing and freezing.

   
In addition to being cool, he also did very cool things.  Here is one example:

 On Easter week-end 1967, I went home from KU having just completed a major hurdle in the Ph.D. program.  I was driving an old Falcon station wagon that Grandpa has "forgotten" to trade in when he bought a new pick-up about the time I graduated from Marquette in 1965.  Usually when I went home he took my car to Deb Falk for repairs and to the Schneiders for a tire check, and usually he paid for it too.  But this time, he came home with a light blue Mustang!  Of course, I cried.  I just couldn't believe that this was for me!  Grandpa had been talking to his friend Floyd Pohlman who happened to have a "used" Mustang that he daughter didn't like after a mere 400 miles.  He worked out a deal so that the payments were well within the graduate stipend I had at the time.   So when he got home with the car, he muttered something about the Falcon being unreliable with a huge smile.  Now I ask you.... how cool is that???

I'm planning to share more with you in the next few weeks, as I'm on a roll for scanning and writing stuff now.   So for starters on the new EFB, what examples do YOU have of this birthday boy being cool?

Gene Ely's 94th Birthday

On January 8 we all will be thinking of Daddy/Dad/Grandpa/GreatGrandpa on his 94th birthday. I found these photos that will bring a smile for sure. Perhaps some of the more recent family members haven't seen them.

Dad with Otis
The colt is Otis, son of Jackie (I think) taken on a rather cold day. Daddy usually didn't wear a coat unless it was really cold. Of course, his OshKosh 'B Gosh bibbies hold a precursor to the Blackberry! This was probably taken in the early 1980s.

Dad with Seco

The horse he is riding is Seco. I believe this photo is from the 1970s but I'm not totally sure. As I dig deeper into the family photo archives, I'll be able to put more accurate dates on these.

The Happy Couple
This is from the tack room, taken in May 1993.

Over the holidays, we played a very cute group game called "Whoonuit?" in which you have cards with phrases and a the group members select things that the person who is "it" has to rank according to personal preference. The cards have sports, foods, activities etc.

For example, Makenna made a list with Blowing Bubbles #1, watching cartoons #2, etc
Quinn made a list with T-Shirts #1, jelly doughnuts #2, …. It is a lot of fun to find things that someone else would like!

So, to celebrate January 8, let's make a list of things Grandpa REALLY liked:

horses, pumpkin pie, Notre Dame, Rotary, Bonanza, …. (add some more!)

ed. note: This post written by Karen Eichstadt with technical assistance from Joe Ely, both honor students of Kenny Hutton :-)